Scrapes...

[dan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZn9VVlpLlQ

[johndeere506]

Good stuff Dan thanks for posting. Was just jumping back into planning my early season hunts this year so this was good timing too. Thanks!

Ill be testing some of the locations they talked about to see if morning vs evening are more productive. I was going to lean to mornings before going back into bedding, but thats usually late OCt/early November. Never paid much attention in early October so well see.

[Tennhunter3]

Thanks for posting.
Definitely what my intel -cams are showing.


My issue is scrapes extremely close to mature buck bedding. Within 30-50 yards. If they stage at that scrape till dark I can hear them but they rarely get too me.

Trying to get within 60 -70 yards of a bedded buck and setup is extremely difficult in hill country.

[Brokenarrow1980]

Thanks for posting, will a scrape near a preferred bedding location open up sooner then the random scrapes or do they start showing up at the same time. If i find one now will it definitely be a scrape near bedding because this one area i hunt is nothing but a big nasty thorny mess and you literally have to get on your hands and knees to follow deer trails in parts of the property. It is so thick that people don't even hunt it because its such a pain. I have an area where i crawl for about 50 yards and i get to a little opening that really can only be hunted from the ground, there are 3 trails that dump into this opening with a rather small scrape where the trails meet. This scrape has a strong licking branch and seems to be opened up by mid September every year. Before i got sick i never hunted it because I didn't want to be on the ground but now thats my only choice so im planning on going for it. Im just wondering if they are tipping their hand on where the mature stuff likes to bed because its literally 100 acres of nasty bedding with tiny holes all through it. In all my years scouting its the earliest pawed out scrape ive seen and it's been there every year i looked at it.

[Hildebrand]

What about a mock scrape I made early this year that I made close to bedding ? I made it on the way to a corn field about 70 yards from bedding ?

[jrain904]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZn9VVlpLlQ

This video made me think of this area. Its in the mountains and it always has a couple of nice scrapes that show up early as small and grow huge by November. The terrain is too steep to access any way besides the old mining road created when they rebuilt the mountain I call a "level". The level (red line) takes you through the tail end of very thick cover for the area (green scribbles) and then leads to the scrapes on the point (purple Xs). If the thermals are dropping i think i can pass the thick cover without being caught to hunt directly over the scrapes, however of the buck drops to the level to travel to the scrapes i am done. I dont believe a mature animal would travel the level though and would prefer to drop straight off the side of the mountain to the scrapes. The scrapes are located on the level. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Hildebrand]

i also wanted to add. I have a bigger doe no fawns bedding in my mock scrape. why would this be